tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54457835285767148972017-10-30T13:34:25.320+00:00IT's Kris HaynesLiving life as a Senior Systems Engineer Packet by Packet.Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.comBlogger107125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-67838344387699956032017-02-18T19:41:00.002+00:002017-06-30T18:39:53.313+01:00Want to make money? No genuinely... Ok, so those who know me - will also know that I'm partial to a bit of day trading on the AIM markets. &nbsp;I see them as a relatively high risk, high reward way of making some returns on your savings. &nbsp;In fact, I measured my success for 2015 and I made a relatively modest increase of 15%, beat that in any bank account at 0.05% interest these days!!<br /><br />Anyway, 15% isn't going to make you rich (or certainly not in the near term anyway!).<br /><br />What I hooked into most recently though is a way to get <b><u>88</u></b>% growth on your initial capital, <b><u>75%-85%</u></b> of the time!<br /><br />I know there are doubters, to be honest the amount of schemes I've tried over the years, that all claim to make you rich really quickly (and yes, there are a few!) - none of them really work - in fact most are designed to make the person recommending them rich and nothing more.<br /><br />So here is how it works and here is how you stack the odds in your favour...<br /><br />The concept is simple, you have two options - you can 'Call' or you can 'Put'. &nbsp;To call suggests you know that the stock price of a certain item will increase over the next 60 seconds, and to Put means the price will drop over the next 60 seconds. <br /><br />If the price is higher than when you said call, you <b><u>double your money</u></b>. &nbsp;If it's lower when you said Put, well you guessed it, you <b><u>double your money</u></b>. <br /><br />Right from the offset, you literally have a 50:50 chance of winning. &nbsp;Not bad odds to start with right?<br /><br />But how about this, if you can identify the <b><u>ceilings</u></b> and the <b><u>floors</u></b> of a stock, you can then predict when they're going to bounce back the opposite way. <br /><br />Here are some examples of what I achieved last week, starting with a basic investment of £250 at 7pm, trading on the USD.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ai7f7RZFGA0/WKihxStRUdI/AAAAAAAAAOg/N68zyoxmyPMAN3emeYsdBAgvvhNZxICTACLcB/s1600/IMG_7020.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Ai7f7RZFGA0/WKihxStRUdI/AAAAAAAAAOg/N68zyoxmyPMAN3emeYsdBAgvvhNZxICTACLcB/s320/IMG_7020.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />As you can see by 7:50pm I was up to £878.14. &nbsp;The aim is to keep your bets small, whilst keeping your growth consistent. <br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2PIjf94_xyg/WKiiEOaz8-I/AAAAAAAAAOk/i6OoKcURj2E3nJiXV7g_1D5ncnPEVw6AQCLcB/s1600/IMG_7021.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2PIjf94_xyg/WKiiEOaz8-I/AAAAAAAAAOk/i6OoKcURj2E3nJiXV7g_1D5ncnPEVw6AQCLcB/s320/IMG_7021.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />7:51pm, in 60 seconds I topped it up to £1,103.74<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YyGjqF6YMN0/WKiiV8prdZI/AAAAAAAAAOo/uAbu6nLv25Q7lMVHwj_K2v9pJL2fWo8YQCLcB/s1600/IMG_7028.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YyGjqF6YMN0/WKiiV8prdZI/AAAAAAAAAOo/uAbu6nLv25Q7lMVHwj_K2v9pJL2fWo8YQCLcB/s320/IMG_7028.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />And by 8:14 I was up to £1,379.74.<br /><br />I think a salary of just over £1k per hour isn't too shabby personally, how about you?<br /><br />The best thing about it all, is that these trades are 100% tax free... So don't worry about your ISAs or CGT being affected!<br /><br />Check out <a href="http://tinyurl.com/logdsgp" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">IQOption</a> in order to setup an account - (<a href="http://affiliate.iqoption.com/redir/?aff=55992" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://iqoption.com/</a>)<br /><br />From there, simply drop in your deposit and start trading. <br /><br />I'd advise you start small, nice easy bids, don't get too greedy too quickly and most certainly do not bid with emotion - only bid with your head.<br /><br />Best of luck everyone, also I really want to help others reach this kind of financial freedom - so if you're interested to learn and have the time get in touch - I want to hear your results too!!<br /><br />All the best!<br /><br /><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Note/Disclaimer.</span></i><br /><i><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Obviously I'm not to be held responsible for your investment decisions, only invest what you can afford to lose, don't get greedy, set yourself limits. &nbsp;I am recommending this because it has been extremely successful for me but you should not hold me responsible if you're not able to receive a return.&nbsp;</span></i>Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-56797263192306033042016-05-27T22:52:00.000+01:002016-06-02T22:52:58.412+01:00When the water stops... <div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">An interesting analogy was presented to me recently and I liked it&nbsp;so&nbsp;much that I thought I'd share it with others... &nbsp;</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">We go about our daily lives, almost with an element of ignorance, in that we generally take no appreciation of the day-to-day services we consume, use or even provide. &nbsp;</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">We're woken up in the morning by our alarm clock - We don't sit back and think about the labourers working in the power stations nor do we&nbsp;think about the components that form the intricate circuits within the box that we so abruptly hit and shout at. &nbsp;We then&nbsp;proceed to take a shower, where we pass no regard for the Gas stations, the circuit designs, the electricity, the water, the purification, the plumbing, the drainage, the glass blowing... and on and on and on. &nbsp;</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">My point here isn't that we don't care about these things...but more so that we've developed into a nation that take these luxuries for granted - and so&nbsp;when we go to sleep we&nbsp;<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">expect</strong>&nbsp;to be woken up, when we get in the shower we&nbsp;<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">expect</strong>&nbsp;hot water. &nbsp;</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">...When is the only time you&nbsp;<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">notice</strong>&nbsp;these luxuries...when they&nbsp;don't&nbsp;work as we&nbsp;expect them too...</span></em></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">A friend of mine introduced me to this mindset and quite rightly so, it starts your mind thinking about things - but the most interesting element I found was that this mindset links directly to the IT industry and the new Cloud era that we sit in. &nbsp;</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Customers that I speak to don't care where the system is, they don't care how it works and they don't care what happens in the transit between us, and them - all they care about is when I turn on the tap...I get my water. &nbsp; When I want to consume my IT, it just works.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">I love this thought process but it does highlight one fairly obvious concern to me, when the plumbing fails -&nbsp;you have to be sure your supply can be resumed. &nbsp;Be sure to guarantee your service can be constant, even when it's not.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">So, I ask you firstly to spare a thought for the providers that we often forget about and&nbsp;<strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">expect&nbsp;</strong>to deliver. &nbsp;</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Then, make sure that you vet your supply. &nbsp;If infrastructure is critical to your business - when the tap stops dripping - how fast can you be back up and running...&nbsp;</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;"><i>If you found this article thought provoking, helpful or if I fixed an issue for you, please click on one of the GoogleAds to support this site and buy me a Virtual Beer! :) Thanks.&nbsp;</i></span></div>Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-53361541733622191042016-04-06T09:30:00.000+01:002016-06-02T22:50:35.058+01:00Seen Software (SaaS), Infrastructure (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)? Try Desktop (DaaS), Metal (MaaS) and Disaster Recovery-as-a-Service (DRaaS)<div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">It's no secret that the public cloud market has been growing like wildfire. In fact, a recent&nbsp;<a href="http://www.gartner.com/technology/home.jsp" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Gartner</a>&nbsp;study found spending on public cloud services is growing at more than 28% per year and private cloud spending is&nbsp;<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">three times&nbsp;</em>that of public cloud! &nbsp;That suggests&nbsp;total cloud spending in 2016 to hit £155 billion.</span></div><div class="ng-scope" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">The focus in the industry over the past few years has been on the core cloud management services of SaaS, PaaS and IaaS. &nbsp;But to truly understand how cloud computing is evolving you have to dive deeper below the surface. &nbsp;Two major developments are driving the evolution of cloud: Management and Specialisation.</span></div><div class="ng-scope" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">In the management space, innovations like self-service portals have given end-users a much-preferred way to request and consume their services. &nbsp;Whereas specialist and dedicated professionals, have developed enterprise solutions with technologies&nbsp;like Citrix XenDesktop, VMware View and Nvidia GRID. &nbsp;</span></div><div class="ng-scope" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">Three specialist areas that have developed as part of natural market progression, are DRaaS, MaaS &amp; DaaS - but what are they?</span></div><h2 class="ng-scope" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 24px; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.16667; margin: 0px 0px 8px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">MaaS</span></strong></h2><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">MaaS - the dynamic provisioning and deployment of whole physical servers, as opposed to the provisioning of virtual machines - is a drastically underrated cloud service. &nbsp;MaaS services will finally open the floodgates to allow any application to be run in the cloud – any application with any service level. &nbsp;That means multi-tiered apps with a backend Oracle database, home grown, performance-intensive applications, low latency trading applications, etc.&nbsp;</span></div><div class="ng-scope" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">It’s been hard for people to pay attention to MaaS, mostly because server virtualisation has been “the shiny new toy” over the past few years and frankly MaaS is not an easy thing to provide. But that may change once IT administrators see the speed, scalability, agility and simplicity with which they can deploy and protect their underlying server infrastructure.</span></div><div class="ng-scope" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">The statistics are clear – a large percentage of servers have been virtualized in the enterprise (40% - 50% now and heading to 60% - 70%). However, there are still a large number of applications that remain running on bare metal. That important (and underappreciated) fact means that MaaS could be a key ingredient to driving more widespread adoption of cloud technology.</span></div><h2 style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 24px; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.16667; margin: 0px 0px 8px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">DRaaS</span></strong></h2><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">Over the past few years, IT departments have had to live in a culture of cost reduction – it’s just been the way of life. &nbsp;That culture has resulted in aging equipment, overworked staff and lots of cut corners - a perfect recipe for higher failure rates. &nbsp;The fact is that hardware failure and human error are still the leading causes of unplanned outages - but devastating storms and other catastrophes are also forcing businesses to get serious about geographic disaster recovery planning. &nbsp;Some estimates put 2014 weather related disaster costs at almost £70 billion worldwide, up 25% from 2013.&nbsp;</span></div><h2 style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 24px; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.16667; margin: 0px 0px 8px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><strong style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">DaaS</span></strong></h2><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">Desktop management is a fundamental service for IT organisations. &nbsp;It’s critical for keeping the employees of a company productive. But there have been long standing challenges with managing the traditional desktop. &nbsp;The investment in desktop hardware can be a significant capital expense, especially for large organisations and day-to-day management of these devices can be a huge drain on resources.</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">DaaS solutions are secure, cost-effective, easy-to-use and portable – you can get the same desktop on any device.</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">According to the&nbsp;<a href="https://451research.com/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">451 Research Group</a>, “Interest in third-party DaaS is at fever pitch.” IT consumerisation, BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) initiatives, increase in mobile workers, Windows 8 migrations and Security/IP concerns are driving organisations to reevaluate their desktop strategy.</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">So, if you're not looking at IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS...make sure you've seen DRaaS, DaaS &amp; MaaS.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">Interested in looking at Cloud solutions? &nbsp;Get in touch, to discuss migration strategies and pricing.&nbsp;</span></em><br /><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;"><br /></span></em><em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;"><em style="font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f6b26b; font-size: xx-small;"><b><u>Did you find this an interesting read? Or did I solve your problem? Buy me a virtual beer by clicking on a Google ad :). Thanks!</u></b></span></em></span></em></div>Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-661651440162690532016-03-17T22:45:00.000+00:002016-06-02T22:50:07.646+01:00Citrix VDI-in-a-Box and whats next?! <div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">VDI-in-a-Box is on its way out, but killing the product wasn't always Citrix's intention. Technical problems, development time and a poor sales strategy appear to be the cause of&nbsp;the product's death.</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">VDI-in-a-Box has been rumoured to be on the chopping block since Citrix acquired&nbsp;Kaviza (the original company behind the product) back in May 2011. &nbsp;While many people lauded Citrix for gaining a VDI product that was easy to install and operate, others thought that the acquisition might have been nothing more than an attempt to alleviate the competition. &nbsp;</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">Many of us held out hope that there would ultimately be some blending of XenDesktop and VDI-in-a-Box, with the best elements of each creating a new VDI platform, but that never proved true.</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">Citrix earlier this year were quoted as saying “We’re going to ‘end-of-sale’ that product and it will be replaced by a simpler and more price competitive version for VDI that we have coming”.&nbsp; &nbsp;The news comes as no real surprise, given that in 5 years since the products acquisition, there’s been virtually nothing done with the software at all. &nbsp;But the future (for the moment) seems unclear.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">There were/are two very distinct groups of customers when it comes to Citrix, those who want VDI in a Box - for its simplicity, its price point and its low maintenance requirements. &nbsp;And then those who want XenDesktop, which can offer the same features (along with a whole host of others) but very clearly requires a different skill set.&nbsp; On the news of the products soon to be death, customers are worrying – what should they be doing next? And what could possibly help in this situation where moving to a more complex product is not the answer.</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">For me, I think this is genuinely a fantastic reason to start thinking about outsourcing your Citrix infrastructure to a specialist provider. &nbsp;Ask yourself these questions, would it be more cost effective if you could pay only for what you use? Would it be less stressful if you let somebody else maintain the complexities of a more advanced system? And would it better enable your business if you could reap the features and benefits of a more powerful system at a third of the cost, with little complexity?&nbsp; If you answered yes to any of the above questions, then you’re in the right place to talk to a&nbsp;</span><span style="color: #3d85c6;"><a href="http://www.axesssystems.co.uk/managed-cloud-services/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">managed services provider</a>&nbsp;</span></span><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">- and you should be!&nbsp;</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">Alas, as we soon say Goodbye in 2016 to Citrix VDI-in-a-Box, a promising product that had its own niche market appeal.&nbsp; We open the doors to a new era of outsourced cloud delivered solutions.&nbsp; One that delivers all the business benefits of a low maintenance, feature rich, cost effective solution – but delivered in a different way. &nbsp;</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="color: #f9cb9c;"><a href="http://www.axesssystems.co.uk/managed-cloud-services/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span style="color: #6fa8dc;">Talk to me today</span></a><span style="color: #f9cb9c;">, to see how I can help!&nbsp;</span></span></div><div style="font-size: 18px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #232629;"><em style="color: #ffeedd; font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><b><u>Did you find this an interesting read? Or did I solve your problem? Buy me a virtual beer by clicking on a Google ad :). Thanks!</u></b></span></em></div></div>Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-38764533272876811802015-12-18T22:43:00.000+00:002016-06-02T22:50:22.409+01:00Graphics have gone off the GRID!<span style="color: #f6b26b;"><br /></span><span style="color: #f6b26b;"><br /></span><br /><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Hopefully by now, when you see or hear the words ‘NVIDIA GRID’…you know, this is all about delivering centrally managed, accelerated graphics to virtualised desktop infrastructures, right?</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">I’m guessing possibly not – anyone who uses VDI, knows that the biggest Achilles heel of the solution is delivering feature rich content and high end graphics to their power users. &nbsp;So what do IT Managers do, they resort to buying custom built workstations or MacPro’s and just accept that there is no alternative.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Interestingly, I think the lack of rapid deployments for NVIDIA GRID comes from the lack of market knowledge.&nbsp; Whomever I speak to about delivering Siemens NX, AutoDesk or CATIA (to name a few) through their VDI estate, tells me it’s not possible.&nbsp; It’s at that point I take great pride in having the ability to say ‘actually, it is possible and here’s why!’</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Axess were one of Three partners in the UK chosen to take the solution to market in late 2013 and to be honest, for me, it’s been a rapid learning curve about Computational Fluid Dynamics and Thermal Transition Simulation – I never thought I’d be learning about the way liquid densities are affected by outside temperatures on a Boeing 747 and thus fuel economies are reduced! &nbsp;But the reason this is all important, generally engineers and designers are the people who feel the pain of not using VDI.&nbsp; These are the guys who have to work on desktop PCs, who can’t work from home, who are still susceptible to viruses and software corruption and those who have to beg for new desktops after 18 months. &nbsp;</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">For me, understanding these challenges is important – it means that when you’re talking to an IT manager about how you can make his life easier and reduce his costs, you can also talk to the designers and the engineers about how to make their lives easier and how much of an impact a system like this can have!&nbsp;</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Alas however – I’m off on a tangent because recently announced by NVIDIA, is their new GRID 2.0 (sounds like Skynet, right?). &nbsp;&nbsp;Almost a dozen fortune 500 companies in the states are completing trials of GRID 2.0 right now - and with 125 approved server models supporting the technology– it looks like this solution could start opening some big doors.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Employees can work from almost anywhere without delays in downloading files, increasing their productivity. &nbsp;IT departments can equip workers with instant access to powerful applications, improving resource allocation. &nbsp;And data can be stored more securely by residing in a central server rather than individual systems.</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">"NVIDIA GRID technology enables employees to do their best work regardless of the device they use or where they are located. This is the future of enterprise computing." said Jen-Hsun Huang, co-founder and CEO of NVIDIA.</span></div><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">The ability to virtualise high end desktops from the datacentre has not been possible until now due to low performance, poor user experience and limited server and application support. &nbsp;NVIDIA GRID 2.0 integrates the GPU into the datacentre and clears away these barriers by offering:</span></div><ul style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 35px; vertical-align: baseline;"><li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: 32px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Doubled user density: The original GRID solution introduced last year has been doubled, allowing up 128 users per server. &nbsp;This enables enterprises to scale more cost-effectively, expanding service to more employees at a lower cost per user.</span></li><li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: 32px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Doubled application performance: Using the latest version of NVIDIA’s award-winning Maxwell™ GPU architecture, NVIDIA GRID 2.0 delivers twice the application performance as before — exceeding the performance of many native clients.</span></li><li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: 32px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Blade server support: Enterprises can now run GRID-enabled virtual desktops on blade servers — not simply rack servers — from leading blade server providers (especially important for clients with Green initiatives).</span></li><li style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: 32px; margin: 0px 0px 15px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Linux support: No longer limited to the Windows operating system, NVIDIA GRID 2.0 now enables enterprises in industries that depend on Linux applications and workflows to take advantage of graphics-accelerated virtualisation.</span></li></ul><div style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">If you’re interested in seeing more about NVIDIA GRID 2.0, you can book a test drive with us here:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.axesssystems.co.uk/demo-centre/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">http://www.axesssystems.co.uk/demo-centre/</a>&nbsp;</span></div><div class="left" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">Or</span></div><div class="left" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 32px; margin-bottom: 32px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="color: #f6b26b;">If you’re interested in testing my knowledge on computational fluid dynamics, capillary convection and Superficial Velocities – give me a ring!&nbsp;</span></div><div><span style="color: #f6b26b;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #f6b26b;"><br /></span></div><div><em style="font-family: arial, tahoma, helvetica, freesans, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #f6b26b; font-size: x-small;"><b>Did you find this an interesting read? Or did I solve your problem? Buy me a virtual beer by clicking on a Google ad :). Thanks!</b></span></em></div>Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-86821479914323658762014-02-16T19:00:00.000+00:002014-02-18T22:04:33.863+00:00My top stock picks for the week! - 17th February 2014 My top picks for this week include a number of stocks I've been watching for some time now, these all have support and break out barriers that are easily identifiable. &nbsp;There are also key signs of trend reversals or additional growth.<br /><br />IMG - Imagination Technologies:<br />Enter at 179p, seeking an exit around 184p by Friday<br /><br />MNDI - Mondi Plc<br />Enter at 1028.00 with an exit around 1055.00 before Friday close.<br /><br />ACHL - Asian Citrus Holdings<br />Enter at 12.00p exit around 14.50p (Slow mover but just may surprise us here).<br /><br />DTG - Dart Group<br />Enter at 263.00, exit around 276.00 (maybe more).<br /><br />IQE - Enter at 22p exit around 26.00p<br /><br /><br /><i><br /></i><i>Please note these are my own opinions and I have no crystal ball telling me which ones will work out and which ones won't and so I'm not responsible for any losses. &nbsp;I target high impact reversal signs, these carry higher risks when they don't work out because your entering markets that most others pull out of; when they work however they're very rewarding. </i><i>&nbsp;On the other hand, if you do get rich off of my tips; a&nbsp;complimentary&nbsp;commission&nbsp;wouldn't go a miss! :)&nbsp;</i>Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-55808325660356438552013-12-05T13:10:00.000+00:002013-12-05T13:10:08.253+00:00How to CPU mine LiteCoinsSome people argue that it`s just not worth it, mining using your CPU but we`re still in the early days of Litecoin which allows us still to benefit from consumer grade hardware.<br /><br />The better way and faster way to earn using LTC is to run a CPU miner in a pool of shared resource and split the benefits.&nbsp; <br /><br />I`m going to be putting together a small very simple, easy to use package available to download and just run.&nbsp; This will connect you into my pool and begin utilising your processor (at a stable rate, worth mentioning).<br /><br />Anyone who wants to know more, please email me or add your details into the comments section ( I wont post these online, they`re private comments).&nbsp; I`m looking for people to give a Worker address too and share the payouts at the end of each week - so if you want to get involved let me know. <br /><br />Some easy way to sell these coins for those who don`t know.&nbsp;At time of writing, 1.0 LTC sells on eBay for 30-40 GBP OR you can convert them to USD for about 40 USD.&nbsp; With the increase in share price still rising, its worth keeping them as an investment to sell&nbsp;later.&nbsp; 1 x Bitcoin now sells for about 680 GBP but started around the same price as the LTC currency.<br />Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-40862796454273596782013-11-21T22:16:00.000+00:002013-11-21T22:16:02.593+00:00Are you ready for the end of SBS & migrating to Hosted Exchange?<div align="left" class="body_copy_orange" style="color: #ff9900; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 24px;"><b style="color: #666666; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">As you will probably already know, Microsoft's popular Small Business Server (SBS) comes to the end of its successful career on 31st December.&nbsp;</b></div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">Its not-so-popular successor Windows Server Essentials, provides some elements of on-site functionality for very small businesses, however there's the added expense of a separate Exchange server, or the choice of using Cloud-based Hosted Exchange services such as <a href="http://www.deltawebsolutions.co.uk/hosted-exchange.html" target="_blank">Delta Web's Hosted Exchange</a> or Office 365.</div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://www.deltawebsolutions.co.uk/hosted-exchange.html" target="_blank">Delta Web </a>runs host to one of the UK's largest and most popular provider of Exchange in the Cloud for SMEs. &nbsp;With the demise of SBS, it allows the use of Cloud-based Exchange for file storage and collaboration in the Cloud.</div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">Exchange 2010 is just £4.95 per mailbox, per month and Microsoft SharePoint is £2.50 per user, per month.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">If you haven't thought about moving to the cloud for hosted exchange, here are 8 reasons you could benefit from moving to the cloud!</div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 20px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>8 Reasons you should move your business Exchange into the cloud.</b></span></div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">* Availability from location to location</div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">* Care Free Maintenance</div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">* Scalability</div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">* Built in Anti-Virus</div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">* Mobile Access</div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">* Cost Savings&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">* Work anywhere, anytime.&nbsp;</div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">* Easily move premises with no downtime.</div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">If you want any advice on how or why to move to the cloud? &nbsp;Please feel free to get in touch below!</div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704" target="_blank">Blogger Profile</a></div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://www.twitter.com/krishaynes" target="_blank">Twitter Handle</a></div><div style="color: #666666; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;"><a href="http://krishaynes.tel/" target="_blank">.Tel Business Card</a></div>Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-14148447485215148432012-11-28T09:07:00.001+00:002012-11-28T09:07:52.146+00:00Convert whole iTunes library to MP3<br />Ok, to avoid arguments with the kind of people who come on pretty strong screaming about 'why you'd want to do this' and 'how Apple's AAC or Loss-less formats are better' let me just take two seconds to explain my situation.<br /><br />I am running an Apple iMac 27" with a collection of music stemming about 10 years, not massive; about 50GB-ish.&nbsp; Now I have decided to purchase an OEM Car stereo which allows me to play my music from a Micro SD Card! :O I hear you gasp, yes technology is wonderful.&nbsp; My problem of course is, these kinds of players only find and play MP3 formats from these disks...&nbsp; So, now we have that out of the way; I'm going to let you in on a little trick I thought about which will allow you to achieve this.<br /><br />My criteria for doing it this way, includes:<br /><br />* The files MUST be in the same folders as the source - I don't want 1000's of mp3 files exported into the same folder so I can no longer identify tracks or Cd's!<br />* The original files I'd like to keep, for the sake of file sizes and other arguable reasons.<br /><br />I found you can obviously Change your settings in iTunes, (Preferences, Import Settings, MP3) which then allows you to right click on each song and create an MP3 version.&nbsp; The issue with this is that it duplicates it into the original folder. Thus not getting you very far at all. This will sort your problem though if you don't mind leaving AAC behind. In which case just do a search for .m4a and delete all. You're just left with your MP3's.<br /><br />You could also, use technology like MediaMonkey or Format Factory again the issue is that these programs output to just one folder! <br /><br />There is a script file that I found here: <a href="http://dougscripts.com/itunes/scripts/ss.php?sp=convertandexport" target="_blank">http://dougscripts.com/</a> but I didnt try this out, maybe you may want to give it a go. It looked like it may have worked.<br /><br /><br />In the end I chose to create a new User, create a new iTunes library; setting the import function to create a copy of the music file and not read straight from source. (File, Library, Organise, Consolidate). So we now have two sets of iTunes music. Now Right click on all tracks, select Create MP3 version and then you now have a full MP3 iTunes library. Finally to finish, go into the new folder, search for all m4a's and delete.<br /><br />The Final product leaves you with your library left alone in AAC (m4a) format along with a duplicate library containing everything in MP3...<br /><br />This was what I needed to achieve, maybe someone else needed the same thing... hope it helps...<br /><br /><br /><br /><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Did I solve your problem? Buy me a virtual beer by clicking on a Google ad :). Thanks!</span></i><br /><br />Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-31356536691758138612012-07-23T11:23:00.002+01:002012-11-28T09:07:41.148+00:00iPhone / MAC can't connect to Exchange Server from inside the network.I believe this is a relatively simple one in the case I've witnessed anyway.&nbsp; The scenario is that you turn on WiFi, connect and then lose access to the exchange.&nbsp; Turn off WiFi go back to 3G and voila you're connected again. <br /><br />The reason that the phones and iMail (to name a few) cant connect to the Exchange from inside the network is because you will most likely be using an external IP or URL right?&nbsp; Thus meaning that everytime you try to access this URL from inside the server bounces packets backwards and forwards around the network not truly knowing what to do with them.&nbsp; <br /><br />I found that if you create a new DNS zone for (mail.domain.com), create an A record within that zone leaving the host blank (to use parent domain). Then point it at your internal exchange.&nbsp; <br /><br />This time if the users phone requests connection to mail.domain.com they get redirected (internally) to 192.168.x.x/24 <br /><br />Simples.. :)<br /><br />Note - You may not need to make a new zone if your domain is already running as the primary. The example I refer to above uses one domain out of about 16 that are running on this network, hence the requirement to build a zone of the sub domain.<br /><br /><br /><br /><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Did I solve your problem? Buy me a virtual beer by clicking on a Google ad :). Thanks!</span></i><br /><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></i><br /><i><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></i><i><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></i><br />Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-66777721456307586882012-05-29T12:22:00.004+01:002012-07-23T11:25:25.077+01:00Reset Windows 7 Local Administrator PasswordEver been locked out of your Windows Vista / 7 Machine. Forgot to enable or create an account for that all important day that you get 'no logon&nbsp;servers available' or 'the trust relationship failed' well this has to be the single most, utterly&nbsp;awesome hack known to the IT world in my opinion!<br /><br />You will need a Windows 7 CD.<br /><br />1.Boot from the Windows 7 CD and click repair my computer, then follow the prompts to get through to using Advanced tools for repair and then command prompt. <br /><br /><br />2.Type C: to change letter from (normally) X: to the active partition.<br />3.Type the following command:<br /><strong>copy c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe c:\</strong><br /><br />This creates a copy of sethc.exe to restore later.<br /><br />4.Type this command to replace sethc.exe with cmd.exe:<br /><br /><strong>copy /y c:\windows\system32\cmd.exe c:\windows\system32\sethc.exe</strong><br /><br />Reboot your computer and start the Windows installation where you forgot the administrator password.<br /><br />5.After you see the logon screen, press the SHIFT key five times.<br /><br />6.You should see a command prompt where you can enter the following command to reset the Windows password (see screenshot above):<br /><br /><strong>net user administrator <em>password&nbsp; &lt;-- replacing 'password' with what you actually want to use.</em></strong><br />7. If the account is disabled you also need to run: <br /><br /><strong>net user administrator /active:yes </strong><br /><br />For anyone who wants to know what we've done here; we're replacing the Sticky Keys executable with a Command Prompt application. Windows will allow you to run Sticky Keys from Pre-Logon so it allows us to boot into a command prompt without authentication.&nbsp; You will probably not want to leave this open on your desktop so once you've finished I'd recommend you go back into the Recovery environment and replace the setch.exe file with its actual file and purpose again. (backed up to C: as per above)<br /><br /><br /><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Did I solve your problem? Buy me a virtual beer by clicking on a Google ad :). Thanks!</span></em><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-16734183518810900462012-04-17T12:15:00.001+01:002012-04-17T12:15:12.587+01:00Biphasic Sleep Experiment - Day 1<strong><u>Let me bring you into my story first..</u></strong><br /><br /><br />So, normally I wouldn't immerse myself into experiments; I'm normally the cautious side-liner that would watch, observe and then when proven will follow! I have however taken on this role of health conscious Haynes and after panning down all those Easter eggs this March, I think it's time to evaluate my fitness regime. The problem I have as an individual; is that when I get home at 6pm, it's time for tea, half 6-7 undress, redress and get ready for the evening and then I either go out to meet friends or go out to my Photography club all of which I enjoy but it does take up a lot of time. By the time I get home, we're normally around 11/12pm and I'm up at 8am very tired, to then shower and run off to work for 9am. <br /><br /><br />I want to have some time to exercise but finding it around my schedule is difficult. I've done some research and to what I understand, I've been doing this so long that my agenda is written very strongly into my subconscious. I wake up at 8am (practically without an alarm / albeit tired) I sleep at 12/half 12 in the morning, just because I need to not because I'm tired and this is what I want to change. I want to wake up early, go for a run/swim/cycle or jog have some time to relax before work and then get on with my day. <br /><br /><br /><br /><strong><u>My Options...</u></strong><br />So I reviewed my options, it appears the three most obvious (Shy of using anti-sleep drugs - not my idea of safe/fun) that I can find are to explore MonoPhasic, BiPhasic and PolyPhasic Sleep patterns. <br /><br /><strong>Monophasic </strong>being sleeping during the night and awake during the day with a very particular pattern. <br /><br /><strong>Biphasic</strong> to sleep for 4 hours in the morning and 1 hour in the evening - strict but with variance.<br /><br /><strong>Polyphasic</strong> to have 2 hours sleep a day, every four hours taking a 20 minute nap. - Very strict.<br /><br />Now I'm quite intrigured by the polyphasic idea but to be quite honest, it's incredibly unsociable and I can't imagine my boss being too happy at work when I suggest every 4 hours <em>I'm just going to take a nap!</em> So I said I'm going to try and migrate myself onto a <strong>Biphasic Sleeping pattern</strong>.<br /><br />So now you know what I'm upto, I figured I'd share my experiences. Apparently the first week is supposed to be the worst where you feel you have been hit by a bus. <br /><br /><br />Here's my new schedule; starting today.<br /><strong>00:30am - Go to Sleep.</strong><br /><strong>05:30am - Wake up and exercise</strong><br /><strong>06:30am - Shower and dress.</strong><br /><strong>07:15am - Some 'productivity' time.</strong><br /><strong>08:15am - Set off to work earlier.</strong><br /><strong>08:45am - Start work.</strong><br /><strong>17:30pm - Finish Work.</strong><br /><strong>18:00pm - Arrive home and have tea (Dinner).</strong><br /><strong>18:30pm - 1 Hour Nap.</strong><br /><strong>19:30pm - Wake up and go out.</strong><br /><br /><br />This will give me a total of 5 Hours sleep per day compared to my normal 7 and a half although I'm fairly confident that after the first week 5 hours will be more than enough, if well balanced. <br /><br /><em>More entries to follow... I'd be interested if people have thoughts or have tried this before to let me know below... </em><br /><em><br /></em><br /><br />Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-86854581775964423412012-04-10T22:14:00.000+01:002012-04-17T10:54:51.505+01:00Time Machine Full Not Deleting Backups Mac OS XSee, I said this would happen didn't I.<br /><br />I managed to break every element of Windows and now I'm even managing the same with MAC OS X!<br /><br />This one got me for a while though, basically I found that my 500GB External Passport Drive was full, it made sense because the day prior I moved 200GB of data from one location to another, so I guess the time machine simply presumed it would backup the same data but in different locations hence running my drive out of space.<br /><br />The issue was that Lion (to my understanding) would delete old backups in order to fix the space issues on my drive, apparently this seems like it isn't quite accurate. You have to go into Time Machine and Delete the old files you don't want anymore. So here's how I did it, I spent ages in that stupid Time Capsule Preferences window with barely any settings to change and just shy of chucking the machine through the window i noticed that in the top right where you locate the Time Capsule icon you can actually hit Enter Time Machine which takes you into the Backup Program. Now if you navigate to a point in time or to a set of files that you perhaps don't need anymore. Right click and hit delete all backups of... This will clear out your old data on the backups and allow the program to continue.<br /><br />Obviously this won't apply to everyone, 50% of you will probably actually have a full disk. In which case, go out and buy another! The remainder however; this should help you out hopefully.<br /><br />Hope it helps :)<br /><br />Kris<br /><br /><em>Did I solve your problem? Buy me a virtual beer by clicking on a Google ad :). Thanks!</em><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-81279255809364542862012-04-07T17:18:00.000+01:002012-04-17T10:54:36.132+01:00iMac 27" WiFi losing connection intermittentlyIn the aid that this helps anyone I thought I'd post it up there with my normal helpful stuff :).<br /><br />This week I decided to finally bite the bullet, you can see through my exhaustive blog that I have found and fixed my fair share of Windows OS problems and it's only fair I give MAC OSX it's shot. So I invested in a brand new 27" iMac, Quad Core 3.4Ghz i7 with a 1TB hard drive I was more than looking forward to working on this bad boy.<br /><br />I was incredibly disappointed when I took it home though, to find that at least three / four times an hour I was having frequent drops in Wireless Connection. I have a decent wireless router (Yes I'm perhaps 30ft away) but I can sit in my car outside (60ft away) and still get a good signal on my iPhone.<br /><br />I found a few 'hot fixes' online, something about in Network Preferences, set it to a new name and not Automatic. I gave it a try, no joy. &nbsp;So amongst my troubleshooting steps I took note of every change and tested and tested and tested until eventually JACKPOT.<br /><br />The problem I have is that my wireless is running WPA-PSK encryption; although my Windows PC, two iPhones and iPad have NO PROBLEM whatsoever the iMAC does! The second you change it to WEP it works like a gem!<br /><br />I have to say I am very, very unhappy about having my network open to WEP. So I went into my Access Point and locked my network down to mac address access only, so I have to approve anyone coming onto my wireless. It gave me that extra piece of mind.<br /><br />To be fair, I'm not entirely against WEP and it will work fine for a lot of people, I just know from my own technical understanding of 'hacking' etc that it is fairly easy to break!<br /><br />Hopefully this post finds those in need well and let me know if it helps.<br /><br />Kris<br /><br /><em>Did I solve your problem? Buy me a virtual beer by clicking on a Google ad :). Thanks!</em><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-14343555867125302542012-03-21T13:35:00.003+00:002012-03-21T13:41:49.114+00:00Renewing a self signed SSL Certificate in Exchange 2007Ok, so I've actually seen this problem so many times now it's unreal and people are always asking me how to fix it because most other guides on the net make it look way to complicated to properly comprehend. So, here goes. This is how I renew an Exchange 2007 SSL Certificate when you get the notice in Outlook it has expired. <em><span style="font-size: x-small;">N.B - The process for renewing through a verified authority like GoDaddy / 123 Reg is not discussed here.</span></em><br /><br />First thing you'll need to do is logon to your SBS 2008 (Ex2K7) box as the domain administrator and open the <strong>Microsoft Exchange Management Shell.</strong><br /><br />Type the following command:&nbsp; <strong>Get-ExchangeCertificate&nbsp;- </strong>This will list all of your existing certificates by Thumbprint and CN (Common Name). <br /><br />You'll need to know the CN, if you're unsure match it to the certificate error being presented in Outlook. History tells me it's normally the <strong>remote.</strong>domain.co.uk that controls the Ex Cert&nbsp;on SBS.<br /><br />Now, using the identified Thumbprint of the certificate you require use the following command. <em><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Important that you use the Pipe command to run this all in one.)</span></em><br /><strong>Get-ExchangeCertificate –Thumbprint 12345678900000000000000000000000000123456 | New-ExchangeCertificate</strong><br /><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Press Y to the overwrite certificate, this doesnt actually overwrite anything. It essentially just sets this new Certificate as the default. </span></em><br /><br />Now, we're nearly there. In the above process you are given a new Thumbprint for your newly renewed SSL Cert. <strong>This is the thumbprint we'll be using moving forward.</strong><br /><br />All you have to do now is enable the SSL Certificate for the services you are going to be using it for. If you're unsure just use the four most common <em><span style="font-size: x-small;">(Particularly on SBS)</span></em>. SMTP, IIS, POP, IMAP. <br /><br /><br />To do this run the following:<br /><strong>Enable-ExchangeCertificate –Thumbprint 12345678900012345600000012345600000123456 –Services IIS</strong><br /><br /><strong>Enable-ExchangeCertificate –Thumbprint 12345678900012345600000012345600000123456 –Services SMTP</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><strong><br /></strong><br /><strong>Enable-ExchangeCertificate –Thumbprint 12345678900012345600000012345600000123456 –Services POP</strong><br /><strong></strong><br /><br /><strong>Enable-ExchangeCertificate –Thumbprint 12345678900012345600000012345600000123456 –Services IMAP</strong><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>I like to do it step by step to make sure it works ok but you can run this command all integrated by seperating the below out with commas. ie. Services IIS, POP, SMTP, IMAP. Sometimes you get a warning on the SBS about another cert taking precendence on TLS connections, again nothing to worry about.</em></span><br /><br />Now test your SSL Certificate, it should all be working and renewed for another year. You can verify the next renewal date by typing:<br /><strong>Get-ExchangeCertificate -Thumbprint 12345678900012345600000012345600000123456 |fl</strong><br /><br />Last but not least when you are happy it's all working again. Simply remove the old cert by typing:<br /><strong>Remove-ExchangeCertificate -thumbprint 12345678900000000000000000000000000123456</strong><br /><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Remember to use the previous thumbprint not the newly created one.</span></em><br /><br /><br />Hopefully that helps a few people and makes this process that at first glance looks terrifying to actually become fairly simple...<br /><br /><br /><br /><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">Did I solve your problem? Buy me a virtual beer by clicking on a Google ad :). Thanks!</span></em><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em></em></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /><em></em></span><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><strong></strong>Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-54196315219524896802012-02-02T12:51:00.000+00:002012-02-02T12:51:02.677+00:00Configuring QoS for SIP / VoIPUnless you have a true understanding of the layer protocols and technologies behind SIP, setting up QoS can actually be quite difficult, as I found out myself.<br /><br />Interestingly when setting up SIP you often set the firewall port to 5060 and leave it at that, so you may simply assume that 5060 is the only required port. What you forget though, is that this is only inbound; what is going outbound?<br /><br />So my personal understanding of SIP (and some wiresharking later) is that it tends to use the following protocols.<br /><br />Signalling via port 5060. ALSO each line after uses upward one port.Line 2 5061, Line 3 5062 etc.<br />Realtime Transport (RTP) 10,000 - 20,000 varying per call.<br />STUN 3478/3479<br /><br />So you see straight away that setting QoS to prioritise 5060 will do next to nothing on your network you need to put in three ranges. 5060-5080 (20 lines), 10,000-20,000 &amp; 3478/3479.<br /><br />All of the above only need to be UDP.<br /><br />Putting these ports into QoS makes a huge difference to the quality of a call for me. I'd be interested to hear other peoples stories.Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-31665628525395224542011-09-16T15:27:00.002+01:002011-09-26T18:16:35.753+01:00Cannot access Windows 7 Shares from a Windows XP Machine<strong><u>Scenario:</u></strong><br />Windows 7 Machines x 4 (1 x Acting as a server)<br />Windows XP Machines x 3<br />10/100/1000Mbps Network.<br /><br />So I replaced a Windows XP server with a Windows 7 one and there was me thinking this was going to be easy... <br /><br />From the XP machines I could ping the 'server' but couldn't get onto it, both by UNC or IP paths. I believe the error was "The specified server could not perform this action" or something to that affect. <br /><br />I did recall having an issue similar tp this with Windows7 in the past and turns out the resolution is the same. You have to disable SMB version 2 so 7 support back compatibility with XP Clients. (You also sometimes get the problem with Windows SBS 2008 and XP machines.)<br /><br />In regards to how SMB is designed to work see below:<br /><ul><li>When a Windows Server 2008/Vista "client" connects to a Windows Server 2008/Vista "server", SMB 2.0 is used.</li><li>When a Windows Server 2008/Vista "client" connects to a Windows 2000/XP/2003 "server", SMB 1.0 is used.</li><li>When a Windows 2000/XP/2003 "client" connects to a Windows Server 2008/Vista "server", SMB 1.0 is used.</li><li>When a Windows 2000/XP/2003 "client" connects to a Windows 2000/XP/2003 "server", SMB 1.0 is used.</li></ul><br /><u><strong>Resolution</strong></u><br />To try disabling SMB2 (which is perfectly safe) enter regedit and navigate to the following key:<br /><br />HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\LanmanServer\Parameters<br /><br />Add a new REG_DWORD key with the name of "Smb2" (without quotation mark)<br />Value name: Smb2<br />Value type: REG_DWORD<br />0 = disabled<br />1 = enabled<br /><br />A REBOOT IS REQUIRED FOR THIS TO WORK....<br /><br /><br /><em>Did I solve your problem? Buy me a virtual beer by clicking on a Google ad :). Thanks!</em><br />Love to know how many other people this helps...Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-53247409083862998662011-08-26T11:50:00.001+01:002011-09-26T18:20:48.047+01:00“The Microsoft Exchange Transport service is rejecting message submissions because the available disk space has dropped below the configured threshold”Problem:<br />Microsoft Exchange 2007 presents this message in Event Viewer and you are no longer receiving emails. You may also see "Insufficient System Resources"&nbsp;when telnetting to the server. <br /><br /><br />Solution<br />We found that although the server had 6.75GB of free hard disk drive space it STILL required 'more' to process inbound emails. I ran WinDirStat which pulls out where the space is being eaten up from and deleted 24GB of useless Log files within IIS. A quick restart of the Exchange service (Transport) fixes the problem.<br /><br /><br /><em>Did I solve your problem? Buy me a virtual beer by clicking on a Google ad :). Thanks!</em>Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-27127508772802306212011-07-16T14:50:00.004+01:002011-07-29T12:29:09.782+01:00Implementing an RSS Feed into SharePoint 2010 Foundation<div><apply-templates select="rss/channel"></apply-templates></div></template><br /><template match="rss/channel"><br /><variable name="link" select="link"></variable><br /><variable name="description" select="description"></variable><br />Most people who have reached this page will probably already now know after a while of searching the net that SharePoint 2010 Foundation does not support RSS feeds out of the box. There is however light at the end of the tunnel and we managed to get a number of RSS feeds delivered into our SP2010 site. <br /><br /><br /><br /><strong>All you do is as follows:</strong><br /><br />Insert a Web-Part as you might do normally and select 'Content Rollup' then XML Viewer. <br /><br />This is our basis for reading the external feed, edit the new Web Part and enter the external RSS feed into the XML Link box. (You can select test, just to be sure). If you hit Apply your read will show in SP however you'll notice it's not the greatest at displaying the data.<br /><br />So, next step we have to format the text properly. You do this by going to XSL Editor and&nbsp;inserting the code available below:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.peakcustomers.co.uk/KH/Design.doc">Right click and Save Target as</a><br /><br /><em></em><br /><em></em><br /><em>Copy and Paste this code into XSL Editor.</em><br /><br />Hit Apply and it will format nicely into bullet points, for those of your able you can obviously customise the above as required. <br /><br /><br /><br />Finally, select Appearence and edit your name fo the feed.<br /><br /><br /><br />Job Done, you have an RSS feed going straight into your SP site.<br /><br /></template><br /><br /><em>Did I solve your problem? Buy me a virtual beer by clicking on a&nbsp;Google ad :). Thanks!</em><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><ul><apply-templates select="item"></apply-templates></ul><br /><div></div>Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-25068750264649381432011-07-05T22:28:00.003+01:002011-07-29T12:29:21.406+01:00the signature of the certificate can not be verified Exchange 2003This took me so long to figure out and there is next to nothing on Google so hopefully this will help a few others like me who have probably reached close to the end of their tether by this point. <br /><br />Everytime we opened the Public Folders section of Exchange this error was produced and so you couldnt then follow any procedures through. Unfortunately for me, I HAD to get into this console. <br /><br />The error is quite simply what it says, there IS an error with your IIS SSL Certificate. Remove your SSL Certificate from IIS and you can access the Public folders, re-add the certificate again and it'll fail again. <br /><br />The ultimate solution is to purchase a correctly signed certificate or if your cushty with CA services, re-issue yourself a shiny new one that matches the server name properly and then install that. <br /><br />Love to know if anyone finds this useful as I spent hours with no results on the net...<br /><br /><em>Did I solve your problem? Buy me a virtual beer by clicking on a Google ad :). Thanks!</em>Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-9331494266976653222011-07-05T21:50:00.001+01:002011-07-29T12:31:27.786+01:00A Potential Security Concern Has Been Identified : Access Runtime 2007We found that in Access 2007 to use a database without the trusted location error bugging the user everytime they open it wasn't quite as simple as you might initially suspect using Access 2007 Pro.<br /><br />To trust a location you have to specify the path in the registry as Trusted Sources / Access Options isn't to be found in the runtime version of Access.<br /><br />Navigate to the following Key:<br /><br /><i>HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Access\Security\Trusted <br />Locations</i><br /><br />Create a string for:<br /><b>'Path'</b>: Specify the full path to the database (excluding *.mdb)<br /><b>'Description'</b> : The description isnt relevant but from testing it appears it is required as an entry.<br /><br />Additionally create a DWORD value for <br />'AllowSubfolders' : 1 to trust any subfolders of Path (Not a requirement)<br /><br />This should eradicate the error from presenting itself, thereby trusting the database.<br /><br /><em>Did I solve your problem? Buy me a virtual beer by clicking on a Google ad :). Thanks!</em>Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-60677911194894575822010-11-29T14:50:00.003+00:002011-07-29T12:31:25.707+01:00ActiveSync only working when Outlook is openWe had a series of issues leading up to this problem and its unknown whether or not we actually caused this however here's how I fixed it in case anybody else see's a similar problem.<br /><br /><strong>The scenario:</strong><br />Outlook 2010, Exchange 2003(SBS), iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, WM5's and WM6's <br /><br />All of the above phones were seeing symptoms, the iPhones batteries were reduced by at least 60% and the windows mobiles didnt seem to be picking up all emails. <br /><br />Whenever Outlook 2010 was open, emails to the phone was brilliant and worked almost perfectly. Once closed, the doors were shut and no more email! <br /><br /><strong>The Fix</strong><br />Edit this key, no reboots necessary.<br /><br /><strong>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIS\VirusScan </strong><br />Set ProactiveScanning = 1 (proactive scanning occurs when an item is delivered to a folder, but a request has not been made by a client) <br /><br />Set ReloadNow = 1 (By default this value is set to zero, by setting this value to "1", Exchange will reload the configuration settings from the registry and reload the Vendor's DLL. Once completed this value is reset to "0" by Exchange.) <br /><br />This sounds like a really unbelievable fix but it genuinely works and I've tested it on other sites where it has worked also.<br /><br /><em>Did I solve your problem? Buy me a virtual beer by clicking on a Google ad :). Thanks!</em><br /><em></em><br /><em><br /></em>Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-73364109861847734282010-10-18T19:05:00.005+01:002010-10-19T12:54:21.389+01:00I’ve been nominated for the Computer Weekly IT Blog Awards 2010!It's a great feeling to have been nominated for the <a href="http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2010/10/18/243307/Vote-in-the-Computer-Weekly-IT-Blog-Awards-2010.htm"><em><strong>Computer Weekly IT Blog Awards 2010 in the Male IT Professional Blogger category</strong></em></a>, sponsored by <a href="http://www.ibm.com"><strong>IBM</strong></a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8WfYt4tg-80/TL2EheAw7iI/AAAAAAAAAKA/vBNExCx_5Pc/s1600/nominee.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 204px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8WfYt4tg-80/TL2EheAw7iI/AAAAAAAAAKA/vBNExCx_5Pc/s320/nominee.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5529721628007656994" /></a><br /><br /><br />The voting structure is very simple, number of votes cast, with one vote cast per visitor. So if you’re a reader of this blog, and want to vote for me, visit the <a href="http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2010/10/18/243307/Vote-in-the-Computer-Weekly-IT-Blog-Awards-2010.htm">Computer Weekly Voting Page for the Male IT Professional 2010 category</a>, hit the big Vote Now button, and pick my name from the list for the Male IT Professional drop-down.<br /><br />I’m really grateful to those people who took the time and effort to nominate me, and for anyone else who votes for me – I really appreciate it :). Don't forget to vote for some of the other fantastic nominee's in the other categories as you only get one chance to vote.<br /><br />Thanks <br /><br />KrisKris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-45980609217681729872010-10-13T15:28:00.000+01:002010-10-13T15:41:10.961+01:00Duplicate Name Exists On The NetworkWowzers, this is an annoying message! I spent the better part of Three days trying to crack this for a customer!<br /><br />Ok so in my scenario, I had 30 PC's coming up with this error at bootup. I think at that point its a fair assumption that there aren't actually 30 PC's all running with duplicate names sitting downstairs in a store cupboard right..?<br /><br />So first port of call, check the event log. I had something like this: <br /><strong>The name "MYDOMAINNAME/MYPCNAME :0" could not be registered on the Interface with IP address 192.168.1.100. The machine with the IP address 192.168.1.1 did not allow the name to be claimed by this machine.</strong><br /><br />The SBS in this case was 192.168.1.10 so why is 192.168.1.1 even talking to my machine when it boots up!?<br /><br />I checked the source of the problem 192.168.1.1 and at first glance couldnt find any problems but then a little more digging and we found out the issue. <br /><br />192.168.1.1 was a Linux server, named exactly <strong>(yes I said exactly)</strong> the same as the Internal Domain Name. So guess what, at DHCP request time, it was going off and sourcing DNS and DHCP via a combination of Samba and Windows SBS packets.<br /><br /><br />I appreciate that this wont be applicable to everyone but when I was trying to find this error where there actually WASNT a numpty who had named two computers the same it came up dry...<br /><br />By the way, another fix which might help you a little... Put your DC/GC with its domain name Domain.local into hosts and point it to the server IP... Might work?Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5445783528576714897.post-24054639288103489942010-10-11T17:29:00.000+01:002010-10-11T17:32:03.742+01:00Num Lock not enabled by Default on some new PC'sStrangely enough to mine and I'm sure many other peoples surprise, the commands are no longer in BIOS. See below.<br /><br />HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Keyboard and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Keyboard<br /><br />0 - Turn all indicators Off (NumLock, CapsLock, ScrollLock)<br />1 - Turn CapsLock On<br />2 - Turn NumLock On<br />3 - Turn CapsLock and NumLock On<br />4 - Turn ScrollLock On<br />5 - Turn CapsLock and ScrollLock On<br />6 - Turn NumLock and ScrollLock On<br />7 - Turn all indicators On (NumLock, CapsLock, ScrollLock)<br /><br />In my case, the string value was some 7 or 8 digit number such as 21765430. These entries are the cause of the reboot change in the num lock status. If you want it on when you boot, set the string value to 2 in all the keys with numeric values. Problem solved!<br /><br /><br />Compliments of <a href="http://www.twitter.com/rwheeldon">@RWheeldon</a>Kris Haynes D.C.M.Thttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00967281415343721704noreply@blogger.com0